They have to be aquired by June 5th to escape complete shutdown. Reason, the owner is in fact going to be rounded up in the asset freezes meaning he/ they will not be able to buy or sell anything after june 5th
Massively OP has been informed by a trusted source that Daybreak’s
claims that it was owned by Jason Epstein, not Columbus Nova, for the
last three years are actually true, if confusing as hell. If this is
accurate, it’s completely possible that Daybreak is being honest about
the Russian sanctions being irrelevant (which is what we were originally
asking them to rebut on Tuesday when they instead dropped the “Columbus
Nova who?” bomb). It is not currently clear why Daybreak waited so long
to correct its statements, why it isn’t being forthcoming about the
exact nature of what it knew and when, why it created unnecessary
suspicion by deleting the historical record, or why it picked this exact
moment to drop layoffs, knowing how it would look.
It's not at all out of the ordinary for a company to go through a round of layoff before selling. It improves the cost structure and gets the negative reactions focused on the old owner, not the heroic new one who steps in to save the day.
Layoff suck though, so best of luck to those affected. Seems like this whole Daybreak/Columbus Nova relationship has been shady for years... Hopefully these folks get a fresh start in a stable company.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
It would be amazing if Intrepid was able to purchase them. The mission statement of their company has always been to bring MMO's back to what gamers want. Especially their stance on a no p2w marketplace. I've been on the fence about Ashes but I might need to follow them more closely now that they potentially are going to have my favorite IP's in their pocket.
Um, yeah...come back and talk to us once they've released a game and proven they keep their promises
I think Amazon would benefit a ton with something like this. Having this IP in their back pocket would serve dual purposes whichever route they take with it:
1. Buy it and keep it under wraps to remove competition from multiple games. They'd also own some of the most massive fantasy IPs known.
2. Buy it and instantly hop up to being one of the biggest, most successful, if not, influential MMO companies out there.
Amazon is trying to take over the world so I think Amazon Game Studios would be stupid not to jump on this.
Heh, and someone was saying this would not affect DBG at all...
I wonder who it was...
Hey shit happens.
Lawyers panicked and they went from - we gonna be just fine to "put company in firesale mode now" - which is why they let go almost half the staff, to make it a lot more desirable on paper.
Also - can you please use a better picture of me next time?
P.S. A few of my friends just lost jobs so this has been really shitty turn of events, and San Diego area sucks for gaming now
SanDiego always sucked for gaming. Seattle is for gaming.
-In the KS they stated Steven was personally funding the core project which they stated was roughly 30m dollars.
I believe this is part of the same misinterpretation, strangely enough repeated on two fresh accounts - one of which just appeared on MMORPG.com today!?
Quite similar things are happening on MMORPG reddit, repeatedly...
Oh whoops I didn't know I can't lurk here and post on Reddit. My bad I'll take my wrong think elsewhere.
Seems like this 30 mil debate has been a popular hot topic for a while now in the Ashes community given how often this "your sources proves nothing" lie has been brought up.
I'm just fed up with it so sue me for having an opinion.
Don't you understand that you are shooting yourself in the foot by linking that reddit post? People here are able to read and think (well, at least some are).
Also, there is a difference between an opinion and deliberately spreading disinformation, on and on.
... If anyone is spreading misinformation it’s gonna be people like you literally saying a CEO is lying to us about his games budget without any proof to back it up.
Where did I say that? Just another case of citation needed, and I feel we'll have more of these.
Well, you did come out the gate and put him on the spot in a very aggressive manner and attacked his post. Then you used his defensive reaction to paint as someone trying to pull something. You sort of derailed the topic to trash talk Ashes so don't pretend you didn't do that. If you're going to take a shot then stand up and take credit for it. I don't like how Slapshot takes shots at this project either but at least he takes owns his own pokes.
Extremely fresh accounts constantly appearing around the "$30M" are strangely typical (just on MMORPG.com and just in this thread we already have three - the third just popped up, post count: one).
It's strange that you choose to ignore that fact, together with his lie (bolded upthere) while reading the whole convo in, well, quite exotic manner!?
I think Amazon would benefit a ton with something like this. Having this IP in their back pocket would serve dual purposes whichever route they take with it:
1. Buy it and keep it under wraps to remove competition from multiple games. They'd also own some of the most massive fantasy IPs known.
2. Buy it and instantly hop up to being one of the biggest, most successful, if not, influential MMO companies out there.
Amazon is trying to take over the world so I think Amazon Game Studios would be stupid not to jump on this.
Y'know, this might not be a bad idea. Ultimately Amazon has more than enough money to buy it and instantly become a player in the MMO space, and they already have rights to a LOTR show, which would correlate well with having the game rights too.
It has long been my personal policy not to comment on rumors. Even if we were in talks with Daybreak for an acquisition, we would not be able to comment. Additionally, I saw the news of recent layoffs at Daybreak today and would like to extend my condolences to those affected. Daybreak (SOE) has an incredible history of creating some of the most cherished franchises that are near and dear to our hearts, and the people laid off today are some of the most talented developers in the industry. Intrepid Studios wishes them the best in their future ventures and I know they will go on to accomplish great things.
In other news today Slapshot1188 stated:
Its long been my policy not to address rumors. I will not comment on the rumor floating around that I could be the angel investor, but if it were true I would dedicate up to a billion dollars to the effort. If I held a Kickstarter it would only be to further flesh out the staff beyond the minimum.
In the interim I will speak platitudes towards the staff and talk about my fond memories of the company and games it produced in the hopes of directing those fans to my pre-sale for my own crowdfunded game.
But that’s all theoretical because I don’t comment on rumors or try to stir them up.
All of that effort just to be nasty and take a cheap shot. That's kind of rude dude because his response was polite and appropriate. A lot of people on his team also know and worked with people who've lost their jobs. What is happening to the games and people at DBG, who don't pull the purse strings or call the shots, is a shitty thing. Most anything I've heard from other studios or industry members has been polite and consoling. I'm sure he's not alone in wanting to see things come out better for those feeling the squeeze and the fans that have supported those IPs through the years.
Just because you can take a shot at your favorite whipping boy doesn't mean you should. It's part of what is wrong with gamer culture right now.
I call it like I see it. All a silly "My policy is not to address rumors" post does is create rumors. If he's not involved then just fucking say it and clear it up. Otherwise IMHO he's just stirring the pot. Even saying nothing would have been better. Or just sticking to the whole "I wish them well" part of the post. Instead he took an opportunity to turn the discussion towards himself and his company.
Besides, you should know that he's not even close to my favorite whipping boy. He has actually (so far) done what he said he would do, in the time frame he would do it so I have not been critical at all since he started showing progress. In this case I see it as trying to take advantage of a bad situation and stirring the pot. If he actually does buy the company and keep the employees then I will be the first in line to applaud him. If he doesn't... then he's just posting for self-promotion and you and everyone else that cares about the affected employees should let him have it.
That's how I see it. You see it differently that's fine.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I think Amazon would benefit a ton with something like this. Having this IP in their back pocket would serve dual purposes whichever route they take with it:
1. Buy it and keep it under wraps to remove competition from multiple games. They'd also own some of the most massive fantasy IPs known.
2. Buy it and instantly hop up to being one of the biggest, most successful, if not, influential MMO companies out there.
Amazon is trying to take over the world so I think Amazon Game Studios would be stupid not to jump on this.
Y'know, this might not be a bad idea. Ultimately Amazon has more than enough money to buy it and instantly become a player in the MMO space, and they already have rights to a LOTR show, which would correlate well with having the game rights too.
It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
I didn't even think of the new TV Show coming from them. Wow, it would definitely be something. They could take the game rights and some assets to try and do a tie in the way Defiance did it.
I think we have something very compelling brewing here.
It has long been my personal policy not to comment on rumors. Even if we were in talks with Daybreak for an acquisition, we would not be able to comment. Additionally, I saw the news of recent layoffs at Daybreak today and would like to extend my condolences to those affected. Daybreak (SOE) has an incredible history of creating some of the most cherished franchises that are near and dear to our hearts, and the people laid off today are some of the most talented developers in the industry. Intrepid Studios wishes them the best in their future ventures and I know they will go on to accomplish great things.
In other news today Slapshot1188 stated:
Its long been my policy not to address rumors. I will not comment on the rumor floating around that I could be the angel investor, but if it were true I would dedicate up to a billion dollars to the effort. If I held a Kickstarter it would only be to further flesh out the staff beyond the minimum.
In the interim I will speak platitudes towards the staff and talk about my fond memories of the company and games it produced in the hopes of directing those fans to my pre-sale for my own crowdfunded game.
But that’s all theoretical because I don’t comment on rumors or try to stir them up.
All of that effort just to be nasty and take a cheap shot. That's kind of rude dude because his response was polite and appropriate. A lot of people on his team also know and worked with people who've lost their jobs. What is happening to the games and people at DBG, who don't pull the purse strings or call the shots, is a shitty thing. Most anything I've heard from other studios or industry members has been polite and consoling. I'm sure he's not alone in wanting to see things come out better for those feeling the squeeze and the fans that have supported those IPs through the years.
Just because you can take a shot at your favorite whipping boy doesn't mean you should. It's part of what is wrong with gamer culture right now.
I call it like I see it. All a silly "My policy is not to address rumors" post does is create rumors. If he's not involved then just fucking say it and clear it up. Otherwise IMHO he's just stirring the pot. Even saying nothing would have been better. Or just sticking to the whole "I wish them well" part of the post. Instead he took an opportunity to turn the discussion towards himself and his company.
Besides, you should know that he's not even close to my favorite whipping boy. He has actually (so far) done what he said he would do, in the time frame he would do it so I have not been critical at all since he started showing progress. In this case I see it as trying to take advantage of a bad situation and stirring the pot. If he actually does buy the company and keep the employees then I will be the first in line to applaud him. If he doesn't... then he's just posting for self-promotion and you and everyone else that cares about the affected employees should let him have it.
That's how I see it. You see it differently that's fine.
You can call it like you see it without being caustic and mean. It's possible to have open discussions in a friendly environment without it devolving to an inquisition.
Not saying anything contributes just as much to the rumor mill. Acknowledging a rumor is hardly inappropriate, but okay you don't like that.
You're right, he's far from your favorite. I think we know who that is. He's on up there though.
No. IMHO if a guy is trying to take advantage of people being laid off to stir the pot and get publicity for his own company then he deserves every mean and caustic comment. As I said, if it turns out he really did buy the company and rehire the staff then I’ll be first in line to applaud him (AND apologize for doubting). If it turns out to be total bullshit then you should call him on it. Taking advantage of people being laid off is disgusting.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
All I'm going to say is, Intrepid Kickstarted Ashes right? Buying the rights to the games and the IPs would be kinda expensive. I mean, DC Universe alone... not even talking about it as a game but the IP, that could be a pretty penny.
Yeah, that's why I assume a bigger company may buy it up. Intrepid can't afford it, and since they have yet to publish Ashes, they aren't gonna get any investors on board.
how do you kno what intrepid can and cannot afford? ? im confused.. if intrepid has enough to fund a 30million project (confirmed on ks) then why couldnt they afford to buy daybreak?
What are they going to do, crowdfund the purchase of DBG? Where is the money coming from?
I'll touch base with that big powerball winner. They've got to be a fan of EQ.
-In the KS they stated Steven was personally funding the core project which they stated was roughly 30m dollars.
I believe this is part of the same misinterpretation, strangely enough repeated on two fresh accounts - one of which just appeared on MMORPG.com today!?
Quite similar things are happening on MMORPG reddit, repeatedly...
Oh whoops I didn't know I can't lurk here and post on Reddit. My bad I'll take my wrong think elsewhere.
Seems like this 30 mil debate has been a popular hot topic for a while now in the Ashes community given how often this "your sources proves nothing" lie has been brought up.
I'm just fed up with it so sue me for having an opinion.
Don't you understand that you are shooting yourself in the foot by linking that reddit post? People here are able to read and think (well, at least some are).
Also, there is a difference between an opinion and deliberately spreading disinformation, on and on.
... If anyone is spreading misinformation it’s gonna be people like you literally saying a CEO is lying to us about his games budget without any proof to back it up.
Where did I say that? Just another case of citation needed, and I feel we'll have more of these.
Well, you did come out the gate and put him on the spot in a very aggressive manner and attacked his post. Then you used his defensive reaction to paint as someone trying to pull something. You sort of derailed the topic to trash talk Ashes so don't pretend you didn't do that. If you're going to take a shot then stand up and take credit for it. I don't like how Slapshot takes shots at this project either but at least he takes owns his own pokes.
Extremely fresh accounts constantly appearing around the "$30M" are strangely typical (just on MMORPG.com and just in this thread we already have three - the third just popped up, post count: one).
It's strange that you choose to ignore that fact, together with his lie (bolded upthere) while reading the whole convo in, well, quite exotic manner!?
I never use the age of an account to judge a post. I also don't consider it an outright lie as I don't consider your position one either.
<snippety snip>
It's not just the account age, or just one account - there is much more than that, as you could see. I am the last one to judge anyone based on their post count.
Also, an outright lie is an outright lie, opinions don't have much to do with these; Maybe you confused that poster with Sharif, a very good wordsmith? Remember, I said "...bolded upthere" - Steven's words are not an outright lie, of course.
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure AoC won't even get close to launch - or they'll launch some kind of "exit strategy" type of SotA, Pathfinder, Wild West Online etc. - naturally spiced up with heavy wordsmithing. It is connected to my question, but I tend to write textwalls in such debates, thus I decided to spare everyone of these; Anyway, you heard it all already in this or that form, here or elsewhere.
Another moment is - I never claim what i can't proove; Essentially, the whole fuss is about people being responsible for their words (far from typical on the internet), and connected to that - identities which can be created or deleted rather quickly.
Massively OP has been informed by a trusted source that Daybreak’s claims that it was owned by Jason Epstein, not Columbus Nova, for the last three years are actually true, if confusing as hell. If this is accurate, it’s completely possible that Daybreak is being honest about the Russian sanctions being irrelevant (which is what we were originally asking them to rebut on Tuesday when they instead dropped the “Columbus Nova who?” bomb). It is not currently clear why Daybreak waited so long to correct its statements, why it isn’t being forthcoming about the exact nature of what it knew and when, why it created unnecessary suspicion by deleting the historical record, or why it picked this exact moment to drop layoffs, knowing how it would look.
There's a guy on massivelyop that responded to update #5, saying the "trusted source" is wrong. I thought it was an interesting read:
dsmart
@bree Those are very good points. You’re not known for throwing stuff out there just for clicks; that’s why I wanted to give you the heads up about writing in the affirmative (or as fact) anything passed along to you by sources.
Yes, while true that this source could have been misled, I know for an absolute *fact* (don’t ask me how) that it’s **not** true.
Besides the US govt and a few Sony execs, there are only 4 people (that I personally know of) on this planet (on the US side) who have the facts. Two of those people are Jason Epstein and Russell Shanks – and neither one of them is dumb enough to say anything of the sort to either govt officials or the media because that would mean guaranteed jail time (for among other things, obstruction of justice). The third would be John Smedley, who isn’t likely to get involved without legal intervention anyway.
The 4th person is an Easter egg that’s going to be revealed as this fiasco unfolds. It’s good; just wait.
From what I have gathered (my sources know better than to lie to or give me false info) thus far :
1) Columbus Nova owns Daybreak via a shell company (this was already exposed earlier this week, though the State filings don’t tell the full story)
2) Daybreak (both a dev & publisher) hasn’t “owned” anything (other than “paper”) since Q2/2016
3) Jason Epstein didn’t just work for CN, he was also a stakeholder & partner in CN
4) I have it on good authority that JE didn’t “leave” CN last year. So just ignore the LinkedIn update which is no different from what they have been doing on Wikipedia and other places. There is a way to obtain legacy LinkedIn updates – and there are people who have his legacy updates and which I have seen yesterday. The last change made to it was recently to reflect that he’s the “owner” of Daybreak. Which is hilarious since neither Russell nor Jason are very active on LinkedIn. They never were.
5) The layoffs announced (with more to come) were part of the strategy to wind down ops and limit the financial exposure ahead of the June deadline. The events ARE connected – and I expect the other shoe will drop very shortly because there’s more to come.
6) The reduction of the work force, which also goes to reducing their financial exposure (e.g. if your main source of ancillary income is going away, you have no choice but to downsize in order to be able to remain financially solvent via sales and licensing of product – not external investment infusion), aligns with the fact that with CN out of the picture, they no longer have access to the extra cash they normally would have. Again, remember, SOE was bleeding cash before Sony scuttled it. There is no reason to believe that in the past 3 yrs anything would have changed so drastically to make finances any better. Except for external funding from Russian money via CN.
7) The general belief is that the attempts to isolate Daybreak from CN has more to do with the money trail, than it does sanctions. Which makes sense because, as I said before in another post, they had NO plausible reason to be doing this crap because AFAIK the sanctions are not about asset seizures. To wind down ops of all its entities in the US, the oligarch who owns CN and several other US based entities, would have to dispose of any/all US based assets. This is precisely why even their stock holdings, bank accounts etc, have been frozen; and they can only liquidate them – even at a loss – and convert to cash which is still theirs to get out of US banks and institutions once they are unfrozen (if ever).
NOTE: According to sources, the amount of money that Viktor Vekselberg has in CN is quite substantial, though its investment in Daybreak are just a “fractional” concern which could very well just be regarded as a rounding error. This would explain how/why they can afford to scuttle or even give Daybreak away to JE through some backend deal of sorts. But even that is going to generate a paper trail.
Here’s the murky part. If CN sells its Daybreak assets to JE, it’s all perfectly legal. However, I believe that JE would have to pay “fair market” value, and it would all be perfectly legal. But those funds would have to be paid out to CN, thus generating a paper trail and closing the loop. Sony->CN->JE. If they’re not careful, we’re now in money laundering territory because even with CN in the loop, when US officials go checking through everything after June, they’re going to be staring at a massive paper trail which should be squeaky clean or, again, we’re in money laundering territory because of the whole Russian sentiment thing going on.
However, by making public statements that JE always owned Daybreak, despite whatever govt filings there may be, they’re in very dangerous legal territory because, again, post June when govt officials go checking, these are some of the questions that JE and CN would have to answer. And if there is ANY indication that this was a cover up to either get around sanctions by continuing to operate a business that should be wound down as per the sanction, a lot of people are going to be in a lot of trouble.
That all this goes back three years, all the way to 2015, makes it worse. That they’re trying to re-write history, just makes thing even more suspicious.
To be clear, AFAIK these guys above aren’t involved in illegal activity etc. They’re just business people who got money from sources that are now under a spotlight. It happens. Heck, even companies like Xsolla, Mail.Ru, Wargaming among others which are part of the videogame ecosystem, all have Russian money, owners etc. To the extent that both of those actually have game funding companies (which AFAIK have yet to sign a single game) such as Xsolla Capital (Xsolla) and Game Ventures (Mail.Ru). It’s murky; and these sanctions, as well as the sentiments toward Russia, just cast otherwise “business as usual” companies in a poor light. And that’s just the bad part.
The argument could be made that you can’t claim ignorance while taking money from the mob, or dodgy sources. But there you have it.
Why do I care? Well, for as long as I’ve been around, I know a lot of people, and I hear things. And this sort of intriguing development is the kind of thing that intrigues and interests me.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
DSmart knows a lot of people. There's further development.
DSmart
"So about update 9. I see that Ars has now confirmed part of what I posted this morning regarding the JE ownership of Daybreak through a shell company.
But it’s still obfuscated bs. He doesn’t own it. CN does. He is the money guy for most of the investments that CN made over the years. That’s how Sony found a buyer for SOE, instead of shutting it down.
They’re going to keep changing their story until we start reading about Federal investigations into all of this. It’s going to happen because they’ve been tripping over themselves these past few days."
Of course. The man is attracted to gamedev drama whether he creates it or not.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
DSmart knows a lot of people. There's further development.
DSmart
"So about update 9. I see that Ars has now confirmed part of what I posted this morning regarding the JE ownership of Daybreak through a shell company.
But it’s still obfuscated bs. He doesn’t own it. CN does. He is the money guy for most of the investments that CN made over the years. That’s how Sony found a buyer for SOE, instead of shutting it down.
They’re going to keep changing their story until we start reading about Federal investigations into all of this. It’s going to happen because they’ve been tripping over themselves these past few days."
I already said it was obvious DBG may be a shell company earlier in this whole convo, no one picked up on it.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
6) The reduction of the work force, which also goes to reducing their financial exposure (e.g. if your main source of ancillary income is going away, you have no choice but to downsize in order to be able to remain financially solvent via sales and licensing of product – not external investment infusion), aligns with the fact that with CN out of the picture, they no longer have access to the extra cash they normally would have. Again, remember, SOE was bleeding cash before Sony scuttled it. There is no reason to believe that in the past 3 yrs anything would have changed so drastically to make finances any better. Except for external funding from Russian money via CN.
<snip>
Lots of interesting points.
One point. As you say SoE were "bleeding cash" prior to Sony selling them. There was a change after the sale however namely game development essentially stopped. That said - based on what DBG said regarding the lay-offs - these have been made to match costs to (projected?) revenue. Which - as you say - would be needed if CN was providing a financial cushion.
Heh, and someone was saying this would not affect DBG at all...
I wonder who it was...
Hey shit happens.
Lawyers panicked and they went from - we gonna be just fine to "put company in firesale mode now" - which is why they let go almost half the staff, to make it a lot more desirable on paper.
Also - can you please use a better picture of me next time?
P.S. A few of my friends just lost jobs so this has been really shitty turn of events, and San Diego area sucks for gaming now
Agree. If these lay-offs have indeed been brought about (or accelerated) by these actions - as suggested in some comments - that truly is a shitty turn of events.
Massively was reporting 70 lay-offs though - if this is almost half the staff though that means a company that once had over 1,000 employees (based on SoE's press releases a few years back) is now down to under 100? Sad in its own way.
Kinda crazy how the mighty have fallen. They were almost at the top of their game once, EQ, Planetside, SWG, EQ2. Then they screwed with SWG and caused a shit storm, and it all went down hill from there.
Of course it's not as simple as screwing up SWG, but that was one of the first mistakes they made.
I honestly think that this company is just cursed. Many of the devs that have worked for SOE have fallen on tougher times than most. Brad McQuaid had his big fail with Vanguard (I won't go into his personal life), Smed hasn't had it so easy since he left DBG/SOE with his failed game launches, Raph Koster has had some fails and can never really get any game related idea off the ground, Jeff Freeman (rest in peace) ended his life. Tiggs the old CM vanished from the whole gaming industry, same as Thunderheart the other CM.
All the games that SOE had bought out over the years seemed to struggle even worse once they got them, most failed in the end. I guess it's just time to let the whole company go and write this off as a failed chapter in gaming history.
They have to be aquired by June 5th to escape complete shutdown. Reason, the owner is in fact going to be rounded up in the asset freezes meaning he/ they will not be able to buy or sell anything after june 5th
Massively OP has been informed by a trusted source that Daybreak’s
claims that it was owned by Jason Epstein, not Columbus Nova, for the
last three years are actually true, if confusing as hell. If this is
accurate, it’s completely possible that Daybreak is being honest about
the Russian sanctions being irrelevant (which is what we were originally
asking them to rebut on Tuesday when they instead dropped the “Columbus
Nova who?” bomb). It is not currently clear why Daybreak waited so long
to correct its statements, why it isn’t being forthcoming about the
exact nature of what it knew and when, why it created unnecessary
suspicion by deleting the historical record, or why it picked this exact
moment to drop layoffs, knowing how it would look.
So a Russian has their assets frozen and all of a sudden the company has layoffs and is up for sale. Come on, let's not be naive. When it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Anything posted by the company at this stage is pure damage control and should be discounted as such.
It really does not matter what we think, it is what the feds think and once that gets out it is going to be hard to keep their playerbase intact.
Comments
Update #5
Massively OP has been informed by a trusted source that Daybreak’s claims that it was owned by Jason Epstein, not Columbus Nova, for the last three years are actually true, if confusing as hell. If this is accurate, it’s completely possible that Daybreak is being honest about the Russian sanctions being irrelevant (which is what we were originally asking them to rebut on Tuesday when they instead dropped the “Columbus Nova who?” bomb). It is not currently clear why Daybreak waited so long to correct its statements, why it isn’t being forthcoming about the exact nature of what it knew and when, why it created unnecessary suspicion by deleting the historical record, or why it picked this exact moment to drop layoffs, knowing how it would look.
http://massivelyop.com/2018/04/26/daybreak-has-now-been-hit-with-layoffs/Layoff suck though, so best of luck to those affected. Seems like this whole Daybreak/Columbus Nova relationship has been shady for years... Hopefully these folks get a fresh start in a stable company.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
~~ postlarval ~~
1. Buy it and keep it under wraps to remove competition from multiple games. They'd also own some of the most massive fantasy IPs known.
2. Buy it and instantly hop up to being one of the biggest, most successful, if not, influential MMO companies out there.
Amazon is trying to take over the world so I think Amazon Game Studios would be stupid not to jump on this.
~~ postlarval ~~
It's strange that you choose to ignore that fact, together with his lie (bolded upthere) while reading the whole convo in, well, quite exotic manner!?
It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
Besides, you should know that he's not even close to my favorite whipping boy. He has actually (so far) done what he said he would do, in the time frame he would do it so I have not been critical at all since he started showing progress. In this case I see it as trying to take advantage of a bad situation and stirring the pot. If he actually does buy the company and keep the employees then I will be the first in line to applaud him. If he doesn't... then he's just posting for self-promotion and you and everyone else that cares about the affected employees should let him have it.
That's how I see it. You see it differently that's fine.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
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"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
I think we have something very compelling brewing here.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Also, an outright lie is an outright lie, opinions don't have much to do with these; Maybe you confused that poster with Sharif, a very good wordsmith? Remember, I said "...bolded upthere" - Steven's words are not an outright lie, of course.
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure AoC won't even get close to launch - or they'll launch some kind of "exit strategy" type of SotA, Pathfinder, Wild West Online etc. - naturally spiced up with heavy wordsmithing. It is connected to my question, but I tend to write textwalls in such debates, thus I decided to spare everyone of these; Anyway, you heard it all already in this or that form, here or elsewhere.
Another moment is - I never claim what i can't proove; Essentially, the whole fuss is about people being responsible for their words (far from typical on the internet), and connected to that - identities which can be created or deleted rather quickly.
There's a guy on massivelyop that responded to update #5, saying the "trusted source" is wrong. I thought it was an interesting read:
@bree Those are very good points. You’re not known for throwing stuff out there just for clicks; that’s why I wanted to give you the heads up about writing in the affirmative (or as fact) anything passed along to you by sources.
Yes, while true that this source could have been misled, I know for an absolute *fact* (don’t ask me how) that it’s **not** true.
Besides the US govt and a few Sony execs, there are only 4 people (that I personally know of) on this planet (on the US side) who have the facts. Two of those people are Jason Epstein and Russell Shanks – and neither one of them is dumb enough to say anything of the sort to either govt officials or the media because that would mean guaranteed jail time (for among other things, obstruction of justice). The third would be John Smedley, who isn’t likely to get involved without legal intervention anyway.
The 4th person is an Easter egg that’s going to be revealed as this fiasco unfolds. It’s good; just wait.
From what I have gathered (my sources know better than to lie to or give me false info) thus far :
1) Columbus Nova owns Daybreak via a shell company (this was already exposed earlier this week, though the State filings don’t tell the full story)
2) Daybreak (both a dev & publisher) hasn’t “owned” anything (other than “paper”) since Q2/2016
3) Jason Epstein didn’t just work for CN, he was also a stakeholder & partner in CN
4) I have it on good authority that JE didn’t “leave” CN last year. So just ignore the LinkedIn update which is no different from what they have been doing on Wikipedia and other places. There is a way to obtain legacy LinkedIn updates – and there are people who have his legacy updates and which I have seen yesterday. The last change made to it was recently to reflect that he’s the “owner” of Daybreak. Which is hilarious since neither Russell nor Jason are very active on LinkedIn. They never were.
5) The layoffs announced (with more to come) were part of the strategy to wind down ops and limit the financial exposure ahead of the June deadline. The events ARE connected – and I expect the other shoe will drop very shortly because there’s more to come.
6) The reduction of the work force, which also goes to reducing their financial exposure (e.g. if your main source of ancillary income is going away, you have no choice but to downsize in order to be able to remain financially solvent via sales and licensing of product – not external investment infusion), aligns with the fact that with CN out of the picture, they no longer have access to the extra cash they normally would have. Again, remember, SOE was bleeding cash before Sony scuttled it. There is no reason to believe that in the past 3 yrs anything would have changed so drastically to make finances any better. Except for external funding from Russian money via CN.
7) The general belief is that the attempts to isolate Daybreak from CN has more to do with the money trail, than it does sanctions. Which makes sense because, as I said before in another post, they had NO plausible reason to be doing this crap because AFAIK the sanctions are not about asset seizures. To wind down ops of all its entities in the US, the oligarch who owns CN and several other US based entities, would have to dispose of any/all US based assets. This is precisely why even their stock holdings, bank accounts etc, have been frozen; and they can only liquidate them – even at a loss – and convert to cash which is still theirs to get out of US banks and institutions once they are unfrozen (if ever).
NOTE: According to sources, the amount of money that Viktor Vekselberg has in CN is quite substantial, though its investment in Daybreak are just a “fractional” concern which could very well just be regarded as a rounding error. This would explain how/why they can afford to scuttle or even give Daybreak away to JE through some backend deal of sorts. But even that is going to generate a paper trail.
Here’s the murky part. If CN sells its Daybreak assets to JE, it’s all perfectly legal. However, I believe that JE would have to pay “fair market” value, and it would all be perfectly legal. But those funds would have to be paid out to CN, thus generating a paper trail and closing the loop. Sony->CN->JE. If they’re not careful, we’re now in money laundering territory because even with CN in the loop, when US officials go checking through everything after June, they’re going to be staring at a massive paper trail which should be squeaky clean or, again, we’re in money laundering territory because of the whole Russian sentiment thing going on.
However, by making public statements that JE always owned Daybreak, despite whatever govt filings there may be, they’re in very dangerous legal territory because, again, post June when govt officials go checking, these are some of the questions that JE and CN would have to answer. And if there is ANY indication that this was a cover up to either get around sanctions by continuing to operate a business that should be wound down as per the sanction, a lot of people are going to be in a lot of trouble.
That all this goes back three years, all the way to 2015, makes it worse. That they’re trying to re-write history, just makes thing even more suspicious.
To be clear, AFAIK these guys above aren’t involved in illegal activity etc. They’re just business people who got money from sources that are now under a spotlight. It happens. Heck, even companies like Xsolla, Mail.Ru, Wargaming among others which are part of the videogame ecosystem, all have Russian money, owners etc. To the extent that both of those actually have game funding companies (which AFAIK have yet to sign a single game) such as Xsolla Capital (Xsolla) and Game Ventures (Mail.Ru). It’s murky; and these sanctions, as well as the sentiments toward Russia, just cast otherwise “business as usual” companies in a poor light. And that’s just the bad part.
The argument could be made that you can’t claim ignorance while taking money from the mob, or dodgy sources. But there you have it.
Why do I care? Well, for as long as I’ve been around, I know a lot of people, and I hear things. And this sort of intriguing development is the kind of thing that intrigues and interests me.
Played: EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-LOTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO-BDO
Waiting For: CU & Vanilla WoW
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
DSmart
"So about update 9. I see that Ars has now confirmed part of what I posted this morning regarding the JE ownership of Daybreak through a shell company.
But it’s still obfuscated bs. He doesn’t own it. CN does. He is the money guy for most of the investments that CN made over the years. That’s how Sony found a buyer for SOE, instead of shutting it down.
They’re going to keep changing their story until we start reading about Federal investigations into all of this. It’s going to happen because they’ve been tripping over themselves these past few days."
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
One point. As you say SoE were "bleeding cash" prior to Sony selling them. There was a change after the sale however namely game development essentially stopped. That said - based on what DBG said regarding the lay-offs - these have been made to match costs to (projected?) revenue. Which - as you say - would be needed if CN was providing a financial cushion.
Massively was reporting 70 lay-offs though - if this is almost half the staff though that means a company that once had over 1,000 employees (based on SoE's press releases a few years back) is now down to under 100? Sad in its own way.
Of course it's not as simple as screwing up SWG, but that was one of the first mistakes they made.
I honestly think that this company is just cursed. Many of the devs that have worked for SOE have fallen on tougher times than most. Brad McQuaid had his big fail with Vanguard (I won't go into his personal life), Smed hasn't had it so easy since he left DBG/SOE with his failed game launches, Raph Koster has had some fails and can never really get any game related idea off the ground, Jeff Freeman (rest in peace) ended his life. Tiggs the old CM vanished from the whole gaming industry, same as Thunderheart the other CM.
All the games that SOE had bought out over the years seemed to struggle even worse once they got them, most failed in the end. I guess it's just time to let the whole company go and write this off as a failed chapter in gaming history.
It really does not matter what we think, it is what the feds think and once that gets out it is going to be hard to keep their playerbase intact.